Dunno if anyone remembers but last year I took a ~200 km loop to the town
of Bolton, Ont and related the experience here. Nothing special about the
town or the trip except that I spent a few teen years there 20 plus years
ago. Returning after 2 decades was definitely a zen thing - symbolically
travelling back in time.
This summer I am pondering a much larger foray, spiritually speaking. I am
considering to take the train to Halifax NS, travelling the South Shore to
the town of my birth [well not technically born there - that took place two
towns over in the nearest hospital] I figure that the trip will be nothing
huge, ~600 km or so. But as a journey of something like 25 years in time - a
symbolic circumnavigation to the beginning.
When you think of the path your life takes to get you where you are now...
then look back to your beginning. Where your childhood was played out, where
what is _you_ was formed.... where your parents rest.
Ya, anyone can take trains plane or autos to visit your past but making the
journey [at least the last part] simply by virtue of your own power, legs
powering the bike, your body the only machine, make the journey a
psychological pilgrimage.
To see what has changed, what hasn't, who left my small town, who stayed.
remember playing in that tree, in that brook, the place you first kissed a
girl.... the stretch of street where you first solo-ed without training
wheels.... the place where you learned to swim...
Or maybe I'm just being overly melodramatic.
Anyone else consider cycling as the search for... the zen?
.... the tao?
.... epiphany?
.... self-discovery?
--
'the place I come from
is with me all the time' -meredith brooks